Saturday, January 28, 2012

Sarah Palin Signs In.

Cannibals in GOP Establishment Employ Tactics of the Left

We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.

We will look back on this week and realize that something changed. I have given numerous interviews wherein I espoused the benefits of thorough vetting during aggressive contested primary elections, but this week’s tactics aren’t what I meant. Those who claim allegiance to Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment should stop and think about where we are today. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, the fathers of the modern conservative movement, would be ashamed of us in this primary. Let me make clear that I have no problem with the routine rough and tumble of a heated campaign. As I said at the first Tea Party convention two years ago, I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. I’ve seen it before – heck, I lived it before – but not in a GOP primary race.

I am sadly too familiar with these tactics because they were used against the GOP ticket in 2008. The left seeks to single someone out and destroy his or her record and reputation and family using the media as a channel to dump handpicked and half-baked campaign opposition research on the public. The difference in 2008 was that I was largely unknown to the American public, so they had no way of differentiating between the lies and the truth. All of it came at them at once as “facts” about me. But Newt Gingrich is known to us – both the good and the bad.

We know that Newt fought in the trenches during the Reagan Revolution. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, Newt was among a handful of Republican Congressman who would regularly take to the House floor to defend Reagan at a time when conservatives didn’t have Fox News or talk radio or conservative blogs to give any balance to the liberal mainstream media. Newt actually came at Reagan’s administration “from the right” to remind Americans that freer markets and tougher national defense would win our future. But this week a few handpicked and selectively edited comments which Newt made during his 40-year career were used to claim that Newt was somehow anti-Reagan and isn’t conservative enough to go against the accepted moderate in the primary race. (I know, it makes no sense, and the GOP establishment hopes you won’t stop and think about this nonsense. Mark Levin and others have shown the ridiculousness of this.) To add insult to injury, this “anti-Reagan” claim was made by a candidate who admitted to not even supporting or voting for Reagan. He actually was against the Reagan movement, donated to liberal candidates, and said he didn’t want to go back to the Reagan days. You can’t change history. We know that Newt Gingrich brought the Reagan Revolution into the 1990s. We know it because none other than Nancy Reagan herself announced this when she presented Newt with an award, telling us, “The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century. Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.” As Rush and others pointed out, if Nancy Reagan had ever thought that Newt was in any way an opponent of her beloved husband, she would never have even appeared on a stage with him, let alone presented him with an award and said such kind things about him. Nor would Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, have chosen to endorse Newt in this primary race. There are no two greater keepers of the Reagan legacy than Nancy and Michael Reagan. What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst.

But this whole thing isn’t really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on. In fact, the establishment has been just as dismissive of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Newt is an imperfect vessel for Tea Party support, but in South Carolina the Tea Party chose to get behind him instead of the old guard’s choice. In response, the GOP establishment voices denounced South Carolinian voters with the same vitriol we usually see from the left when they spew hatred at everyday Americans “bitterly clinging” to their faith and their Second Amendment rights. The Tea Party was once again told to sit down and shut up and listen to the “wisdom” of their betters. We were reminded of the litany of Tea Party endorsed candidates in 2010 who didn’t win. Well, here’s a little newsflash to the establishment: without the Tea Party there would have been no historic 2010 victory at all.

I spoke up before the South Carolina primary to urge voters there to keep this primary going because I have great concern about the GOP establishment trying to anoint a candidate without the blessing of the grassroots and all the needed energy and resources we as commonsense constitutional conservatives could bring to the general election in order to defeat President Obama. Now, I respect Governor Romney and his success. But there are serious concerns about his record and whether as a politician he consistently applied conservative principles and how this impacts the agenda moving forward. The questions need answers now. That is why this primary should not be rushed to an end. We need to vet this. Pundits in the Beltway are gleefully proclaiming that this primary race is over after Florida, despite 46 states still not having chimed in. Well, perhaps it’s possible that it will come to a speedy end in just four days; but with these questions left unanswered, it will not have come to a satisfactory conclusion. Without this necessary vetting process, the unanswered question of Governor Romney’s conservative bona fides and the unanswered and false attacks on Newt Gingrich will hang in the air to demoralize many in the electorate. The Tea Party grassroots will certainly feel disenfranchised and disenchanted with the perceived orchestrated outcome from self-proclaimed movers and shakers trying to sew this all up. And, trust me, during the general election, Governor Romney’s statements and record in the private sector will be relentlessly parsed over by the opposition in excruciating detail to frighten off swing voters. This is why we need a fair primary that is not prematurely cut short by the GOP establishment using Alinsky tactics to kneecap Governor Romney’s chief rival.

As I said in my speech in Iowa last September, the challenge of this election is not simply to replace President Obama. The real challenge is who and what we will replace him with. It’s not enough to just change up the uniform. If we don’t change the team and the game plan, we won’t save our country. We truly need sudden and relentless reform in Washington to defend our republic, though it’s becoming clearer that the old guard wants anything but that. That is why we should all be concerned by the tactics employed by the establishment this week. We will not save our country by becoming like the left. And I question whether the GOP establishment would ever employ the same harsh tactics they used on Newt against Obama. I didn’t see it in 2008. Many of these same characters sat on their thumbs in ‘08 and let Obama escape unvetted. Oddly, they’re now using every available microscope and endoscope – along with rewriting history – in attempts to character assassinate anyone challenging their chosen one in their own party’s primary. So, one must ask, who are they really running against?

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany is pushing for Greece to relinquish control over its budget policy to European institutions as part of discussions over a second rescue package, a European source told Reuters on Friday.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's executive body is rejecting calls from Germany to establish a eurozone budget commissioner who would directly control tax and spending decisions in debt-ridden Greece.

2) "I've now been in 57 states I think one left to go." A. Barack Obama B. Dan Quayle C. Sarah Palin D. George W. Bush

3) "On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, and I see many of them in the audience here today." A. Barack Obama B. Dan Quayle C. Sarah Palin D. George W. Bush

4) "What they'll say is, 'Well it costs too much money,' but you know what? It would cost, about. It it it would cost about the same as what we would spend. It. Over the course of 10 years it would cost what it would costs us. (nervous laugh) All right. Okay. We're going to. It. It would cost us about the same as it would cost for about hold on one second. I can't hear myself. But I'm glad you're fired up, though. I'm glad." A. Barack Obama B. Dan Quayle C. Sarah Palin D. George W. Bush

6) "I bowled a 129. It's like - it was like the Special Olympics, or something." A. Barack Obama B. Dan Quayle C. Sarah Palin D. George W. Bush

7) "Of the many responsibilities granted to a president by our Constitution, few are more serious or more consequential than selecting a Supreme Court justice. The members of our highest court are granted life tenure, often serving long after the presidents who appointed them. And they are charged with the vital task of applying principles put to paper more than 20 centuries ago to some of the most difficult questions of our time." A. Barack Obama B. Dan Quayle C. Sarah Palin D. George W. Bush

8) "Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma, they end up taking up a hospital bed, it costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early and they got some treatment, and a, a breathalyzer, or inhalator, not a breathalyzer. I haven't had much sleep in the last 48 hours." A. Barack Obama B. Dan Quayle C. Sarah Palin D. George W. Bush

9) "It was interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There's a lot of I don't know what the term is in Austrian, wheeling and dealing." A. Barack Obama B. Dan Quayle C. Sarah Palin D. George W. Bush

10) "I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future." A. Barack Obama B. Dan Quayle C. Sarah Palin D. George W. Bush

All of the correct answers are the same person. Each of these quotes are directly from President Barack Obama. And now you know why he takes his TelePrompTer with him everywhere he goes ...even when talking to a 6th grade class. And some members of the media continue to insist he is "The smartest man ever elected to the Presidency."

If Obama had anything on the ball, he would have let those kids fool around with TOTUS. That would have given them some real memories to share with their children someday.

"Well, son, I remember when TOTUS and I...."

"What's that daddy, what's that? Who's TOTUS?"

"TOTUS was President once, son. President of the Greatest Country On Earth. He was a friend of mine....The American People voted for TOTUS, son, good people, insurance salesmen, people of the soil, the salt of the earth, all voted for TOTUS, son..."

Joined by actor Jon Voight – as well as Senator John McCain and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell – the former Massachusetts governor came to the Fish House restaurant here in this military-heavy region on Florida’s panhandle.

We are all for Citizens United and the First Amendment until it is our ox (in this case Newt) that is being gored and then we whine foul.

It is the MSM not independent and unbiased stations like FOX which I work for that are being used by the 'Washington establishment' to skewer a fellow Republican. Shame and Fie.

I respect Romney but there remain questions that need to be answered about his bona fides. On the other hand, everything, good and bad, about Newt is already known so why keep bringing it up, why keep looking for more?

She tells us Newt supported Reagan from the right despite the fact that other Republicans have publically stated that Newt was continuously criticizing Reagan. And where does she get this info?

Rush Limbaugh of course.

Rush, the man who creates stuff from thin air; he pulls it out of his ass. About a week ago, complaining about the left, he told his audience there are no unions allowed in China, they throw the organizers in solitary, for good behavior they send them to North Korea. Anyone with any experience in China knows this is bullshit. Not only are there unions (obviously as independant as ours) but there is often a communist apparatchik among the ruling body in many of them. But the dittoheads scream, "Tell it like it is Rush, you da man." Morons.

And what does Rush actually say in the link Palin references? "Well, it might be true but I sure don't remember it." Take a look at the link she gave. The damn thing is of a broadcast, pages long, in which he cites all the quotes from Republicans, the press, even Newt's own spokesperson, and his bottom line, "It could be true but I don't remember it". The man is a buffoon.

But this is not about Romney or Newt Sarah says, "In response, the GOP establishment voices denounced South Carolinian voters with the same vitriol we usually see from the left when they spew hatred at everyday Americans “bitterly clinging” to their faith and their Second Amendment rights." And mom and apple pie too. She makes me want to puke.

"This is why we need a fair primary that is not prematurely cut short by the GOP establishment using Alinsky tactics to kneecap Governor Romney’s chief rival.

In 2003, the Bush administration upgraded its concerns about Fannie and Freddie, requesting much stronger oversight. According to testimony by then Treasury Secretary John Snow, "We need a strong, world-class regulatory agency to oversee the prudential operations of the GSEs and the safety and the soundness of their financial activities." The New York Times reported that the administration's plan was "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago," and "an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken."

But Democrats would not support additional oversight or restrictions. Former House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank declared in congressional hearings: "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the federal government does not bail them out."

Frank insisted, "I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. I believe there has been more alarm raised about potential unsafety [sic] and unsoundness than, in fact, exists."

And roll the dice they did!

In the Senate, Charles Schumer objected to concerns raised by Sen. John McCain, about the solvency of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: "My worry is that we're using the recent safety and soundness concerns ... as a straw man to curtail Fannie and Freddie's mission." The "mission," as amended by Democrats, was to reach out with home loans to millions of marginal or unqualified "customers" -- thus fueling the real estate boom.

In 2004, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified: "What we're trying to avert is we have in our financial system right now two very large and growing financial institutions [which subsidize loans and] that prevents the markets from adjusting appropriately, prevents competition and the normal adjustment processes that ... creates stability. ... [By] enabling [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] to increase in size ... we are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk. If we fail to strengthen GSE regulation, we increase the possibility of insolvency in crisis."

In 2006, Sen. McCain again went to the Senate floor warning, "The GSEs need to be reformed without delay." However, every Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee voted against regulatory reforms. That year, housing prices peaked and started to reverse.

In 2008, amid eroding consumer confidence, the entire economy began spiraling toward collapse. Even Bill Clinton admitted, "I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress ... to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

Now, Obama says, "I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place." This is the Big Lie he's been telling ever since he became a failed president. In fact, his policies are all about government intervention and manipulation of the economy.

Returning to excerpts from his SOTU: "There are fewer illegal [border] crossings than when I took office. (There are fewer jobs than when he took office.) Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away. (That law already exists -- Obama's administration has ignored it.) We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years. (That was in reference to his administration.) Our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be... (out of business.) The payoffs on these public investments... (taxpayer-funded union votes.)"

"Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home. (I think he meant "take the debt we're no longer spending," and for "nation-building here"? more like "nation wrecking." For the record, since the ratification of our Constitution, the 43 presidents that followed added, $4.16 trillion in debt. Since taking office, the 44th president has added more than $4.6 trillion in additional debt.) We'll run out of money. (We already did.) Government can't fix the problem on its own. (Government IS the problem!) We need smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior. They make the free market work better. (Yes, a regulated free market.) When it comes to the deficit, we've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. (Not really.)"

"Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. (OK, it is class warfare.) We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. (Just drink the Kool-Aid.) I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right about now. (When will this guy shut up?!) Can you blame them for feeling a little cynical? (Nope.)"

"I've talked tonight about the deficit of trust. (In fact, you increased it exponentially.) I've asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy. (More centralization?) We should all want a smarter, more effective government. (We should all want a smaller more irrelevant government.) America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. (Even sitting down for a beer summit?) Working with our military leaders, I've proposed a new defense strategy that ensures we maintain the finest military in the world ... gay or straight. (You knew where that was going, didn't you?)"

Remember when Obama proclaimed he was going to oversee "the fundamental transformation of the United States of America"? Well, he did. "How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain," he said in his address. "But we have a huge stake in the outcome."

Indeed, we do have a huge stake in the outcome, as does our posterity. Patriots have staked our ground on the the side of Liberty.

Obama concluded, "Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned doesn't know what they're talking about." Anyone who does not think America is in decline, must be a socialist or profoundly ignorant -- but then I repeat myself.

In 2006, Sen. McCain again went to the Senate floor warning, "The GSEs need to be reformed without delay." However, every Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee voted against regulatory reforms. That year, housing prices peaked and started to reverse...

And on the other side, the GOP has fought every type of regulatory reform meant to prevent another financial crisis like the one we went through in 2008.

Surely there is enough blame to go around. Why pick sides? Just say, "Screw them all".

As the week wore on, we couldn't help noticing a common theme: Mitt Romney's taxes, Warren Buffett's taxes, Warren Buffett's secretary's taxes. In fact, Barack Obama built his entire State of the Union address around envy, virtually declaring it the long-lost, ultimate American value and pointing to the aforementioned supposed tax disparity as proof. The tax code is indeed a glaringly obvious problem. It pits every constituency against the rest, and Leftists are especially adept at exploiting that to wage class warfare.

Obama's tired refrain is that the rich don't pay their "fair share" -- not even as much as their secretaries. The president trotted out the secretary of billionaire Warren Buffett to "prove" his point. He claimed that she pays a rate higher than her boss, despite the obvious income disparity (Buffett says she earns about $60,000 a year). Facts, as usual, are the first casualties. For starters, he compared apples and oranges by contrasting her total tax burden with Buffett's rate on federal income taxes.

Furthermore, the top 1 percent pays their "fair share" of 36 percent of income taxes while the bottom 50 percent pays next to nothing. That disparity only increased with the Bush tax cuts, contrary to Democrat rhetoric. Obama used his ruse to demand that those earning more than $1 million per year pay at least 30 percent in taxes. "You can call this class warfare all you want," he challenged. "But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense." According to the Congressional Budget Office, however, the top 1 percent already pays 29.5 percent when all federal taxes are accounted for, while the middle class pays 15.1 percent. If Obama were referring to the capital gains rate, 30 percent would be the highest since 1978.

Leftists also found a bludgeon in Mitt Romney's taxes. By any measure Romney is wealthy, with income of more than $20 million in each of the last two years (the only years for which he released returns). Yet because his income is almost entirely capital gains and the like, his tax rate was around 15 percent. Unnoticed, however, is that most of that money was taxed already at the corporate rate of 35 percent before it was ever paid to him. Democrats decried Romney's unfairly low burden, although when John Kerry paid only 13 percent in 2004, their silence on the issue was deafening.

Back to the SOTU, the president also called for "reforming" the tax code -- by making it more complicated. He wants to remove tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas. The only problem is that no such breaks currently exist -- unless he means that other nations have tax rates roughly half that of the U.S. thus causing companies to leave for other shores. Obama also wants to offer special breaks to alternative energy companies and manufacturing (read: unions), while sticking it to "Big Oil."

Real reform would lower the corporate rate to, say, 15 percent for all industries and simplify deductions. It would also lower rates for individuals, rather than raising them as if the natural order of things is a top rate of 43 percent. Furthermore, it would keep capital gains rates low. History proves that lower rates increase economic activity, and with last quarter's underwhelming 2.8 percent growth, most of which was inventory expansion, we need it. Besides, even if Obama confiscated all the wealth of the "rich," he couldn't fully pay for his agenda.

Charitable giving sheds some light on the rationale behind the Left's demands. Mitt Romney gave more than 19 percent of his income to various charities, including the Mormon Church, in 2011 -- that's more charitable giving than taxes paid. The Obamas, on the other hand, gave just 1 percent of their income to charity between 2000 and 2004, increasing that to 5 percent by 2007. Joe Biden gave $369 -- three hundred sixty-nine dollars -- the year before becoming VP, and just $5,350 in 2010. A reasonable conclusion is that because "liberals" are so miserly with their money, they think the only way to "spread the wealth" around is through forced taxation.

Not only are these hypocrites stingy, but they don't even pay what they owe. The IRS reports that 36 of Obama's executive office staff owe some $833,970 in back taxes, and thousands of federal employees owe back taxes totaling $3.4 billion. Obama declared in his speech, "We need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes." Good thing his staff doesn't have to worry about that.

The OWS and Tea Party represent extremes in political thought, the OWS coming from the left and the Tea party offering solutions from the right.

However, one thing both groups agree on, the current political makeup in this country stinks. Both seem to agree that the majority of the current Dem and GOP politicos just don't get it. Much of America agrees with them on that issue.

In any societal relationship where there is an allocation of resources the decisions are political. Based on the numbers, over the past thirty years, those political decisions (laws, regulations, tax policies, etc.) appear to have to a great degree favored the rich to the detriment of the middle class.

People are always looking out for their own interests. It's natural. The rich have the power to skew the process in their favor but then they shout "Class Warfare" when someone objects.

What numbers do you have? How are the tax receipts distributed across tax rates?

Look it up yourself (if you are really interested)

The tax reciepts and FICA inputs are easy. Look up the federal budget.

The breakdown of tax revenue from various tax brackets is also available. Factoring in the FICA is the hard part since as rat pointed out it is currently a very regressive tax with the wealthy not paying it on total income but only up to about $100k.

Someone may have already run the numbers. Check google. Why should we look it up for you?

I put some number out there. That were called lies w/o numbers to back up the rebuttals.

Really?

It was pointed out that your numbers were based on false assumptions. They were based only on income taxes, not on income plus FICA taxes, or if you want a complete and representative number, total taxes. No one called your numbers lies. We merely said they were meaningless in any discussion of the current allocation of taxes.

You were the one demanding more explanation. I would think the one you got was sufficient.

How many times have we seen these 'Class Warfare' spouting types when confronted with the truth brush it away.

CNBC is notorious for it. Taxes are a bugaboo for Larry Kudlow. He usually has three pretty well off conservatives on a panel plus one lib. When they talk class warfare and taxes and the lib brings up FICA, Larry says "we don't have time to talk about that right now; let's stick to a discussion of rationalizing (lowering in Larry-speak) the tax brackets".

Same for the panel programs in the morning with Joe Kernan or with any of the money chicks there.

When Steve Leisman put on this big show about the debt limit last summer, he conveniently left out any mention of the driving forces behind much of the argument, taxes on the rich. When questioned, his response. "I didn't want to make the discussion too political."

It's the dirty little secret those on the right do not want to talk about.

You made a good point regarding the double taxation on SS benefits, rat. The class warfare and anti-tax proponents always bring up 'double taxation' on dividends, etc; but they never mention the double taxation on FICA.

“Today the oil industry enjoys billions of dollars in tax subsidies while the renewable fuels industry has none,” said Shaw, proceeding to name off all of the subsides unique to the oil industry.

It’s a long list that requires a high-price accountant to understand – not a problem for the oil industry! Percentage depletion allowance, marginal oil well incentives, enhanced oil recovery credits, intangible drilling costs expensing, deduction for tertiary injectants, exception from passive loss limitations for oil and gas, etc. According to a DTN analysis, the total comes to about $17.9 billion a year.

All of it goes back to the inception of the tax code in 1913. What that means is simply that these subsidies, unlike the meager tax credit that helped the ethanol industry for a fraction of that time, are EMBEDDED in our tax code. They are never going to expire.

While Andrew Mellon, arguably the most successful Secretary of Treasury in US history thought that income from labor should be taxed at a lower rate than income from capital.

The fairness of taxing more lightly income from wages, salaries or from investments is beyond question.

In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it and old age diminishes it; in the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man’s life and it descends to his heirs.

Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mettle and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments.

Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.

I had lunch with 2 of my unmarried friends.One is engaged, one is a mistress, and I have been married for 25+ years.We were chatting about our relationships and decided to amaze our men by greeting them at the door Wearing a black bra, stiletto heels and a mask over our eyes. We agreed to meet in a few days to exchange notes..

Here's how it all went.

My engaged friend:

The other night when my boyfriend came over he found me with a black leather bodice, tall stilettos and a mask.

He saw me and said, 'You are the woman of my dreams.

I love you.' Then we made passionate love.

The mistress:

Me too! The other night I met my lover at his office and I was wearing a raincoat, under it only the black bra, heels and theMask over my eyes. When I opened the raincoat he didn't say a word, but he started to tremble and we had wild, sweet sex all night.

Then I had to share my story:

When my husband came home I was wearing the black bra,Black stockings, stilettos and a mask over my eyes.When he came in the door and saw me he said,

Rufus:What that means is simply that these subsidies, unlike the meager tax credit that helped the ethanol industry for a fraction of that time, are EMBEDDED in our tax code. They are never going to expire.

The word "subsidies" sounds like there's a transfer of wealth from Uncle Sam to Exxon. Liberals use the same sleight-of-hand when they say tax cuts have to be "paid for" as though there's a sacrosanct baseline.

"10. Does the tax distribu­tion look a lot different if we factor in other federal taxes, such as the payroll tax?

It’s true that the distribution of taxes is somewhat more equally divided when payroll taxes are accounted for—but the change is surprisingly small. Payroll taxes of 15 percent are charged on the first dollar of income earned by a worker, and most of the tax is capped at an income of just below $100,000. The Tax Policy Center, run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, recently studied payroll and income taxes paid by each income group. The richest 1 percent pay 27.5 percent of the combined burden, the top 20 percent pay 72 percent, and the bottom 20 percent pay just 0.4 percent. One reason that the disparity in tax shares is so large is that Americans in the bottom quintile who have jobs get reimbursed for some or all of their 15 percent payroll tax through the earned-income tax credit (EITC), a fairly efficient poverty-abatement program."

This is from a May 2011 article from the Center by the Policy and Budget Priorities.

"Moreover, low-income households as a whole do, in fact, pay federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data show that the poorest fifth of households as a group paid an average of 4 percent of their incomes in federal taxes in 2007 (the latest year for which these data are available), not an insignificant amount given how modest these households’ incomes are — the poorest fifth of households had average income of $18,400 in 2007. [4] The next-to-the bottom fifth — those with incomes between $20,500 and $34,300 in 2007 — paid an average of 10 percent of their incomes in federal taxes.Even these figures understate low-income households’ total tax burden, because these households also pay substantial state and local taxes. Data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy show that the poorest fifth of households paid a stunning 12.3 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes in 2010.[5]When all federal, state, and local taxes are taken into account,the bottom fifth of households paid 16.3 percent of their incomes in taxes, on average, in 2010. The second-poorest fifth paid 20.7 percent. [6]"

The Elephant Bar's tireless endorser of Sarah Palin is the descendant of a Viking. The Vikings had a good run about a thousand years ago, but they've since mellowed quite a bit, and now send us crap like VOLVOs (Very Odd Looking Vehicular Objects) and "Mamma Mia".

Cut the top income tax rate from 77 to 24 percent Cut taxes on low incomes from 4 to 1/2 percent Reduce the Federal Estate tax Efficiency in government

Mellon believed that the income tax should remain progressive, but with lower rates than those enacted during World War I. He thought that the top income earners would only willingly pay their taxes if rates were 25% or lower. Mellon proposed tax rate cuts, which Congress enacted in the Revenue Acts of 1921, 1924, and 1926. The top marginal tax rate was cut from 73% to 58% in 1922, 50% in 1923, 46% in 1924, 25% in 1925, and 24% in 1929. Rates in lower brackets were also cut substantially, relieving burdens on the middle-class, working-class, and poor households.

By 1926 65% of the income tax revenue came from incomes $300,000 and higher, when five years prior, less than 20% did. During this same period, the overall tax burden on those that earned less than $10,000 dropped from $155 million to $32.5 million....Mellon's policy reduced the public debt (largely inherited from World War I obligations) from almost $26 billion in 1921 to about $16 billion in 1930, but then the Depression caused it to rise again. By 1935, Franklin Roosevelt had gone back to high tax rates and wiped out Andrew Mellon's initiatives.

On Dec. 29, security forces raided as many as seven nongovernmental groups in Cairo, including three American-financed democracy-building groups — the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House. Employees were hauled in for questioning in a bogus criminal investigation.

On Thursday, the Egyptian government confirmed that it had barred at least six Americans — including I.R.I.’s Egypt director, Sam LaHood, the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood — from leaving the country.

The generals make the specious charge that recent unrest was caused by “foreign hands.” Outside forces didn’t drive Egyptians to courageously rise up against Hosni Mubarak. And outside forces aren’t driving them to keep pressing the military to keep its promises and move fully to civilian rule. If Egyptians want outside help to make that transition, they should be allowed to accept it.

I.R.I.’s president, Lorne Craner, said that in his organization’s 30-year history, it has never been treated like this by any country, including Russia, China and Venezuela...

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.